Thursday, June 25, 2009

word magic...

As writers and readers, we all love words... Rub two carefully chosen words together, and magic happens. Writing friends on one of my loops have been discussing German words lately. Schadenfreude came up. It's a German word that wikipedia describes as largely unanticipated delight in the suffering of another, which is cognized as trivial ... I'm sure we can all think of examples of this that we'd rather not mention.. But when it comes to emotions, I have always loved Sehnsucht, which means longing. From the moment I read the poem by Friedrich Schiller in high school, this word has entranced me. It seems to echo the pain and the sweetness and the necessary patience that comes with longing. Definition according to google: Sehnsucht, is a German word that refers to longing, is a fleeting moment in which one feels an intense calling to a world completely unlike the one now lived ...

To me, it sums up what our books are all about.Do you have a favourite word?

1 comment:

Schadenfreude is such a useful word. I like 'serendipity' and not just because it was the name of the house(?) in Adventure Island. I love the idea of happy coincidence: good things coinciding through pure chance. Just sometimes.